IBM discovered a severe flaw in Dropbox SDK for Android

IBM's X-Force Application Security Research Team has disclosed the fact that there exists a severe vulnerability in the Dropbox SDK for Android. It can authorize an attacker to connect a vulnerable app on a victim's device to their own Dropbox account for wrenching data. The vulnerability could also enable a cyber attacker to steal sensitive information and inject defamatory data into third-party apps.

IBM's X-Force Application Security Research Team has spotted the vulnerability (CVE-2014-8889), and also developed a working proof-of-concept exploit [video], dubbed DroppedIn, which allows for a targeted app to be linked with an attacker-managed Dropbox account.

Dropbox acted swiftly and, according to IBM, issued a patch within four days after being informed about the problem by IBM's team of researchers. The vulnerability came out as a result of the authorization mechanism used in the Dropbox SDK for Android and had the potential to smash any app using it. That includes Microsoft Office Mobile, which apparently holds a number of files on Dropbox for its Android users, and AgileBits 1Password.

Dropbox later informed TechRadar that the vulnerability only infects files that have been freshly saved through the third-party apps and at no time have previously saved files been compromised in Dropbox accounts.The author of the post, Roee Hay, X-Force Application Security Research Team leader, explained that the vulnerability “lets adversaries insert an arbitrary access token into the Dropbox SDK, completely bypassing the nonce protection.”

“Developers are strongly encouraged to update their SDK to the latest version. In order to avoid exploitation of slowly updating apps, end users should update their apps to the latest versions and install the Dropbox app, which makes exploitation impossible,” Hay wrote.

IBM and Dropbox are entreating developers to update to the latest patched version of the SDK immediately (v1.6.3 or Sync/Datastore Android ADK v3.1.2) and for end users installing the Dropbox for Android app will make the vulnerability intractable to exploit.